@Ecouterre

Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse , currently on view at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, is something of a Rorschach test for our relationship with stuff. Taken at face value, the exhibit highlights the myriad ways we can artfully give leftover fabrics a second lease on life. Dig deeper, however, and you might strike an unexpected vein of criticism, one that casts a gimlet eye at the 310,000 truckloads of clothing that Americans throw away each year. Featuring the work of Milan’s Luisa Cevese, Los Angeles’s Christina Kim, and Tokyo’s Reiko Sudo, Scraps seeks not to hector but to educate, illuminate, and perhaps even inspire. Ecouterre caught up with Susan Brown, associate curator of textiles, and Matilda McQuaid, deputy curatorial director and head of textiles, to get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the exhibit, their opinion of th...